


Comfort Food

by Box15



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Chapter 1 Spoilers, Gen, I try out a lot of new stuff in this fic, i guess this counts as canon divergence if you really want it to, please be kind to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 05:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11247744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Box15/pseuds/Box15
Summary: What Shirogane thought would cheer her up has only made the situation worse. A sugary pick-me-up might help to take her mind off it. [Set at the very end of chapter 1. Spoilers for chapter 1 ahead!]





	Comfort Food

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the prompt: “You ate that whole cake? Did your OTP not get together?” 
> 
> I've been trying to get back into writing so I can bring you all some spicy Oumasai in the future. Please keep in mind I try out a lot of new stuff in this fic, including; writing v3 characters, 3rd person, prompt based writing and a different structure. So if it sucks, I'm still learning! 1st person and DR2 characters are my usual bag, you see.

Shutting the game room door behind her, Shirogane made her way to the cafeteria. The school at night was frightening, to say the least. Lights off, no one around. No one that you knew of, at least. Who knows what was lurking in the shadows? No, it’s only you and your thoughts, with the light of your handbook to guide you. It doesn't get more atmospheric than this. 

Arriving at her destination, the cafeteria door closed with a click. She felt better knowing that if anyone was sneaking around, there was at least one wall between them. Moving into the kitchen section, Shirogane opened the fridge. A satisfying, if irritating, hum came from within. Sitting on the shelves were normal supplies; milk, eggs, fruits and veg, yogurts, and so on. But what caught her attention was the cake sitting on the middle shelf. 

Lining up exactly with her line of sight, the cake seemed to be there to tempt you. Surely, if you didn’t want this eaten, you would have tried to hide it. Teenagers are famous for their lack of self control, especially around food. The cake was chocolate flavoured, with a rich milk chocolate topping. It even had chocolate cream filling and icing, to boot. Everything about this cake screamed “Eat me!” 

She remembered seeing Tojo bake this cake a few days ago. If she's correct, it was to help take her mind off of the time limit and their impending doom. But, she’s also pretty sure it's meant for sharing. 

Well, she’d come this far already. Besides at this moment, she needed a pick me up more than the others needed cake. Sure, Saihara looked like he could do with it. Both from a weight and an emotional perspective. Today hadn’t been kind to him, either. But at this very moment, she didn’t care. She was here now, she was sad, and she was going to have that cake. 

Sitting down at the table, Shirogane tucked into the first slice. It wouldn’t make today’s horrors go away, but damn did it taste good. The flavour, the texture, the sensation of stealing someone else’s delicious food…

It was worth it.

Before she knew it, Shirogane only had two slices left. She’d only meant to eat one or two, to cheer herself up. But here she was, having almost had the whole thing to herself. It was Tojo’s fault for being too good at baking. She’d keep telling herself that. Checking the time on her handbook, she saw it was now 6AM. She’d been here for an hour now. If she didn’t finish soon, she wouldn’t get any sleep.

Sighing at the thought, she rested her cheek on her palm, elbow on the table. Thinking about having to socialise, after yesterday, made her feel quite depressed. Looks like she was back into her slump.

Focused on her own thoughts, her reaction was delayed when the door opened inwards.

“Shirogane?”

“Ouma?”

Shirogane had never taken Ouma for an early bird. With his high energy levels and playful (if harmful) personality, she thought he would be more of a night owl. The type who spends all night scheming the next prank, figuring out how to push people’s buttons. Seeing him here, this early in the morning… that was a surprise. If it was Harukawa or Tojo, it'd make sense. But Ouma? not so much.

“What are you doing up so early?” She questioned, trying not to worry. So what he’s an early riser. That means nothing. Him standing in a shadowy corridor, wandering around on his own wasn’t worrying at all. She had done it earlier too. 

He looked shocked to see her for a brief moment, but in a second he was back to smiling. “Well, y’know? Jus'-” A small pause. “Just couldn’t sleep well, with all that happened yesterday. I’ve been on and off napping all night.” He stepped into the kitchen, coming into the light. He genuinely did look tired, if nothing else. Was that any reason to believe him? They were alone in this kitchen. If he decided to try anything, there wouldn’t be many options for her. For now, she decided to not worry about it. There was no way Ouma was stronger than her. Besides, she was already stressed enough without worrying about might happen. 

Shirogane grunted in agreement, nodding her head. If he wasn’t lying, then she could empathize. Losing Amami, and then Akamatsu so close together was exhausting. Walking over to her, Ouma eyed the cake.

“Whoah, you ate the whole lot?” His said, his mouth agape. “Did your OTP not get together or something?” He said sarcastically, followed by a giggle. Okay, so he wasn’t as empathetic as she thought. But she wasn’t in the mood for his teasing. Tears threatened to built.

“Yeek, are you okay? Shirogane, you don’t look so good! Was the disappointment that bad?”

Too late, they had already spilled.

\---

During their initial investigation of the campus, Shirogane had wound up in the AV room at one point. There wasn’t anything of real note here, but she found herself leafing through the mass of DVDs on the walls anyway. On the whole, they weren’t too interesting to her. But there was one that stood out to her, a boxset of a popular 90’s anime. It featured a red, leaf like symbol on the side of the box. The DVD spines showed a purple mecha, along with some teenagers. 

She’d seen the show before, of course, it was a classic. In the past, she had made the costumes from it. Yet, to know something so ordinary was here comforted her in a way. A hint of familiarity went a long way in such uncertain times. This in itself was enough to make her want to re-watch the series. That, and there was a nostalgia value to an older series. So she decided to come back later to do that. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t come to pass. With Monokuma setting a time limit and kicking up a fuss, there wasn’t a moment to sit around and watch anime. She supposed that was to be expected, even if it was unfavourable. 

But patience is a virtue, and her chance came on the night after the first trial. After the loss of both Amami and Akamatsu, she had felt rather hollow inside. She hadn’t expected to be so affected by this, to have so much taken out of her. She supposed you never know these things until you experience them first hand. Maybe she was exhausted from the hours of arguing. 

For a brief moment, there was no motive in place. No incentive to kill. A few hours of downtime to recover from the trial and reflect on what happened, to sort out your feelings. This was the least likely time for one of them to try something. One quiet night to watch anime, and a chance to feel better. So when the group broke up from the trial grounds, she headed towards the AV room. On the way, she spied Saihara going towards Akamatsu’s research room. But she payed it no mind, she had better things to do than worry about him. 

The real kicker was when the protagonist’s love interest died. They hadn’t known each other long, but they already meant the world to each other. The interest made the protagonist feel better about his horrible situation. Now they were back to their misery, and feeling worse than before.

It was a sad episode, and all Shirogane could think of was the detective. He had been through something similar today, even if the circumstances were different. It was all too real now. Turning off the DVD player, she rubbed her eyes. Now she needed a distraction from a distraction. There was one thing she could think of to make her feel better.

\---

“Ouma, we’re all going to die here! Amami and Akamatsu were good people, but look how it turned out for them! And the effect it’s had on Saihara! This could happen to any of us, and our relationships don’t make us any safer. All this friendship, this romance, is it actually helping?" Shirogane sobbed, forgetting to care about who she was crying to. If she was talking to Angie, this wouldn’t of been so weird.

“Well, of course not. Relationships are a liability. Saihara might be smart in court, but he obviously knows nothing about surviving. He should keep that cute face to himself and stop using it to get close to others!” He didn’t miss a beat, replying like it was obvious. Rolling his words off as easily as an automated message would.

“Hey, no problemo. Being social is important to your health, but in this situation you have to tone it down. Kinda sucks, huh. But hey-! Usually people don’t like it when I tell them harsh things like that. So you’re not bad yourself!” He giggled. “Hey, mind if I have some of that cake? I won’t tell the others that we ate it.”

Shirogane pushed the plate towards him, and he used her cake fork to take a bite. Bringing it up to his mouth, the frosting left a splodge on his nose. Cute.

**Author's Note:**

> At the time of writing, I haven't actually seen the end to NDRV3 yet. I'm on chapter 5! But I have a vague idea of what happens. This fic is just a general story I wanted to write, so hopefully it can be enjoyed without knowledge of the whole game. If I'm too far off, I'll edit this when I finish the game! NDRV3 is a loonnngg game, and I couldn't wait any more to start writing for it.


End file.
